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Illinois Sues Company Selling Cell Phone Calling Records

Illegal Sales Endanger Law Enforcement, Domestic Abuse Victims

January 22, 2006

Calling Records • FTC Shuts Down Pretexting Operation • Phone Pretexters Get Off Cheap • Verizon Wireless Changes Customer Data Policy • FCC Strengthens Rules For Phone Privacy • House Tries Once More to Pass Pretexting Bill • Pretexting Bill: Pretense or Reality? • Hewlett-Packard Pays $14.5 Million to Settle Pretexting Suit • HP Scandal Ignites New Pretexting Battle In Congress • AT&T Sues Calling Record Brokers • Sprint Nextel Settles Case with Florida Data Broker • Feds Sue Calling Record Vendors • Illinois Lawsuit Charges Data Brokerages • Florida Judgment to End Data Broker's Business • Florida Investigates Fake Caller IDs • California Sues Data Trace USA for $10 Million • Missouri Sues Datatraceusa.com • Florida Sues Data Broker Over Sale of Phone Records • Texas Sues Companies Selling Telephone Calling Records • Websites Hawking Phone Records Shut Down • FTC Vows to Stop Illicit Sale of Cell Phone Calling Records • FTC Pledges "Vigorous" Pursuit of Cell Phone Record Sales • AT&T Accused of Eavesdropping, Calling Record Sales • Sprint Sues Cell Phone Record Brokers • Missouri Shuts Down Locatecell.com • Texas Probes Cell Phone Calling Record Sales, Missouri Files Suit • Illinois Sues Company Selling Cell Phone Calling Records • Outcry Over Sale of Cell Phone Calling Records

Identifying such abuse as "privacy theft," Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has sued a Florida company that for roughly $100 and a cell phone number will use allegedly illegal means to access an individual's cell phone or land line records.

Madigan filed the complaint against 1st Source Information Specialists, Inc., d/b/a locatecell.com, celltolls.com, datafind.org and peoplesearchamerica.com. The company is located in Tamarac, Florida.

Madigan, who subpoenaed locatecell.com approximately two weeks ago, sued the defendants under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

"This entire enterprise is an outrageous invasion of personal privacy that could put lives in danger," Madigan said. "The possibility of harm from this 'service' to victims of domestic violence and law enforcement is enormous. As Attorney General, I will do everything in my power to stop this abuse."

Madigan's complaint alleges that 1st Source made misrepresentations to telecommunications companies to obtain phone records by calling companies and posing as the customers, agents or employees of the company; made misrepresentations to telecommunication companies online by posing as consumers to gain unauthorized access to online accounts; sold phone records illegally obtained; and misrepresented to consumers via the Web sites that they had legally obtained the call records.

Madigan said the defendants only need to be provided with a third party's cell phone or land line telephone number to achieve their goal of obtaining the cell phone records. In fact, some of the sites offer a discount if the customer includes the consumer's name and address along with the cell or land line number.

Using this information, defendants will provide up to 100 outgoing calls with dates within the most recent billing cycle. Defendants will also provide incoming calls if possible. Some Web sites have options to purchase additional information such as call times and duration.

The defendants can use the information they provide in a number of ways: defendants can offer a reverse look up service for both cell and land line numbers; a customer can look at the outgoing calls provided by defendants and then have the defendants turn that phone number into a name and address: both land line and cell phone reverse look up tools are available for free on the Internet.

Recent Examples

In filing her complaint, Madigan cited recent examples of cell phone record abuse.

On January 6, 2006, a Chicago police official used locatecell.com to obtain the call records on an undercover narcotics telephone number and received accurate call records within four hours of the request.

In a separate incident in California on September 8, 2005, according to a Cingular affidavit filed in its litigation against 1st Source, during an undercover buy, defendants or their agents posed as an employee/agent of Cingular and as a customer of Cingular to induce Cingular's customer service representative to provide them with the call records of the targeted consumer.

In her complaint, Madigan also noted the "come-on" nature of the advertising for the data broker service, including Web sites that stated, "No data returned, No Charge for the Search;" "RESULTS WITHIN 1 TO 4 HOURS!! No Hit – No Charge!" and "Reverse Cell Phone Number to Name and Address."

The complaint seeks to prohibit the defendants from operating in Illinois and seeks civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

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